Questions about Age of Ascent

Neytiri wrote: Cuchullain wrote: Daefis wrote: Sorry GMStormcrow but  war or no war the last tourney was nearly a year ago. And the fact that there's a war going on should be irrelevant in a sandbox. Current events shouldn't be an excuse to not deliver anything? a year is far too long..... As for anything new believe me we're expectant..... I concur 100% Also, totally, completely agree! You're penalizing alliances that stayed out of the war by refusing them a tournament. I vote for a clear separation between war and tournament.

GM Stormcrow wrote: If the funding comes through we can hire more people to work on AoA things (which are largely also illy things).  I don't think you should look at things linearly, however.

If I've been playing this game as long as I think I have, your income is derived almost exclusively from us prestige buying.  If I have owned a business as long as I have, I would know that diversified revenue is a safer way to grow your business.  More revenue would enable you to hire a part time programmer to enhance Illyriad, or a blogger to add periodic content to "The Herald".  Anything that would increase your retention rate of new players. 

If I had to guess, a higher retention rate would lead to higher sales of prestige.

So, why not look at banner ads or some other creative revenue source for Illy.  I think the concern you are hearing from those who have posted concerns is that your staff will be stretched too thin with two online gaming communities to service.  Illy players already feel a little neglected, so its natural for us to assume this will continue.

I know this is a thread about AoA. . . but I would submit that you are likely to encounter the same problems over there once the seed money runs out and staff is further limited.


And while I'm on the subject of offering you unsolicited advice, "open source" (suggested by someone else) could happen in a lot of different ways.  If you are concerned about sharing code, understandable. . . open Illyriad up in different ways.  If you read these forums, there are a lot of talented creative writers here that could add content to "The Herald" or devise easy to administer tournaments.   It happens within alliances, but with little reward for the people who volunteer to administer.  The easier you make it for players run their own mini narratives, the more you'll engage the folks who are already here and invested in the game. 


I am completely unsure how the narrative thread in AoA will be facilitated. . . but I think you get the idea.

I think larger alliance sizes are fine as long as you make it more and more difficult to administer them. E.g. research/skills training to enable them and in game monetary costs etc.

The folk that are willing to put in the effort to create and maintain larger alliances deserve the rewards that come from that effort.


Edited by KillerPoodle - 10 Mar 2014 at 04:52

So...any chance they answered if there will be muskrats? I don't really have the time to watch an hour long Q&A video. >.<

GM Stormcrow wrote: ... On the alliance front; I'd love to get feedback on this from you guys.  Is there a big difference between having 6 alliances of 100 players, or 1 alliance of 600 players?  I understand that it might make communications a bit more difficult etc, but that seems like a kinda artificial constraint.  Is there a good reason why we shouldn't raise the cap on alliances (in AoA, or indeed in Illy).  I'd love to hear thoughts on this. ...